Traded Away
by Rushii
Summary: Neji is injured, and badly. But he still gets sent on a dangerous 3 month mission. It is soon found out that he died on the mission, when he doesn't return after the mission. How will Tenten react? And is Neji really gone for good?
1. Kunai Venom

**This is my third attempt at a Naruto story, and hopefully the chapters will turn out a little longer than my other tries. I'm really not a commitment person, but this story idea really made me want to write it. Then again, things don't always happen the way you want them to. So we'll just see how this goes. If I get at least 1 review, I'll keep writing. And if not, then this story is dead until I try to rewrite it. : (**

**Disclaimer: If I owned it, do you think I would be writing a fan fiction? Do I really have to say it?**

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"Good morning, everybody!" yawned Tenten as she showed up for training.

"Good morning, Tenten." replied Gai.

"How youthful of you to say so!" shouted Lee.

"Hn..." grunted Neji, as he continued to throw kunai at the stumps on the training ground.

Ignoring Neji's strange sound, and Lee's 'fits of youthfulness', Tenten grabbed her own set of kunai, and began to practice her aim. As is bound to happen to people aiming at the same thing, Neji and Tenten bumped into each other, both of them missing the target.

"Watch where you're going, baka!" hissed Neji.

_'Whoa, touchy. I wonder if anybody else noticed Neji's been a little... uptight the last few days. Not even uptight, more like utterly and completely pissed of at everything.' _Tenten was pretty confused. Even thought Neji wasn't known to be a _friendly_ person, he wasn't the type who would normally insult people at all. He'd just ignore them with his little 'Hn' thing.

All the time while thinking, Tenten had moved back to her original spot and continued throwing her shuriken and kunai. But she hadn't really been paying attention to anything. So, naturally she didn't stop when her name was called.

"Tenten."

Snatch. Thwack.

"Tenten."

Snatch. Thwack.

"Tenten!"

Snatch. Thwack.

Neji walked over to her, and shook her shoulder. But, seeing as Tenten didn't know what was going on around her, she assumed it was attack, and swung her kunai around into the hand on her shoulder. In the time it took her to realize that it was Neji who had taken hold of her, Gai was shouting for a medic, Lee was screaming like a little girl, and Neji was lying on the ground holding his fingers in a fist. Tenten started to panic, but not before wondering why Neji would show that he was in pain. Sometimes he was a bit too proud for his own good.

Within a couple of minutes, a squad from the hospital turned up with a stretcher. They all had grim looks on their faces as the looked Neji's body over. Tenten couldn't see the damage, so followed them to the hospital.

Inside the hospital, Neji had been taken to the emergency ward. Tenten wanted to see him, as did Gai and Lee.

"Hang on just a moment, I'll talk to the medic working on him." said the receptionist.

In a few seconds, the group was led up to the room that Tenten assumed was Neji's. As they entered, they spotted Sakura cleaning the gore of blood off Neji's hand. He was groaning in pain. Lee ran out of the room, looking as green as his spandex, when he saw the blood. Gai jumped after him, knowing that sort of thing was a bit... disturbing to some people.

Once Sakura was done with cleaning, she went into another room to get some bandages and sedatives. Looking at Neji's hand, Tenten began to understand why he was in so much pain. His ring finger had received a large cut, almost to the bone. But his pinky was another matter. It was barely attached to his hand anymore. Only a thin layer of skin kept the two from being separated completely. _'Lee is lucky he left the room when he did, otherwise he might be puking his lungs out. Hell, I might puke my lungs out!'_

But that didn't explain why Neji was in ER. With Sakura's amazing chakra control, his fingers could be perfectly fine, no scar, within moments. As Tenten watched, Neji's hand began to turn purplish, like an old bruise. His heart rate quickened, and an alarm sounded. Sakura came rushing back into the room, with a panicked look on her face. As she noted the coloration of Neji's arm, her face set into a grim mask.

"What weapon was used to do this, Tenten?"

"Well, a kunai, but it was an accide-"

"Bring it here."

Tenten rushed to the waiting room where her weapon pouch was, and pulled out the small kunai. As she handed it over to Sakura, the medic sniffed it and her face became even more serious. Calling some lesser rank medics over, she began to order them around.

"Get a tourniquet on his arm! Go grab that needle over there! Hand me that bottle of

anti-neurotoxin!"

As she shouted this, Neji's arm began to twitch. His whole body soon began to spasm uncontrollably. When the things Sakura needed were handed to her, she quickly snapped the tourniquet onto Neji's arm to keep the... whatever it was... from spreading. As she filled up the needle, Neji's movements became more violent.

"Hold him down! I can't do this right if he's thrashing about like that!"

Plunging the needle into his wrist, Sakura slowly but steadily injected the medicine directly into his bloodstream. As Neji eventually began to settle, Sakura gave a sigh of relief. It had been too close.

Meanwhile, Tenten was completely baffled about the situation._'I have a feeling that there's something nobody is telling me.' _as Neji's heart rate and breathing settled into a calm pattern, Tenten turned to Sakura to find out exactly _what the hell_ was going on. Before she could even speak, Sakura understood and quietly informed her of the situation.

"Snake poison."

"Wha..."

"Somebody seems to have a bit of a grudge against Neji. Your kunai was coated with the venom of one of the rarer types of cobras. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't do something like that, because you and Neji have known each other for several years without ever being hurt by one another on purpose."

"But that means that..."

"Somebody was trying to either kill Neji, dismember him, maim him for life, or just plain inconvenience him."

"But what confuses me is that the venom was making Neji spasm. How strong was that stuff?"

For the first time since Neji got hurt, Sakura looked Tenten in the eye. Sighing, she washed her hands off while Tenten noticed the grim look she had in her green eyes. Sakura began to quote from her book on poisons.

"The venom of snakes is often used for assassinations or to paralyze a victim. Administered through a dart or on the surface of kunai or shuriken, the most effective for a quick death is the venom of the proteroglyphous snake, or King Cobra. Containing the cholinesterase enzyme, it causes the muscles affected by the poison to spasm and eventually be destroyed. If the venom reaches the heart or any of the organs, it is fatal."

When Tenten processed all of this, she finally knew the danger Neji had been in. he could have lost his fingers, arm, been paralyzed for life, or even died. As Sakura slowly surrounded Neji's hand with her chakra, the fingers slowly began to heal. The ring finger now had something akin to a paper cut, but the pinky still was cut to the bone, and the tendon was surely snapped. A medic ran into the room, saying that Sakura was needed for another patient. She quickly finished bandaging up Neji's hand, then left.

Tenten knew her feelings for the prodigy hadn't died down over the years, but only gotten stronger. Although she knew the poison on the blade wasn't her fault, she still felt slightly responsible for the cuts. The chakra strings that had been controlled by the mysterious enemy had made the swing a lot more serious, but it had still been Tenten that swung it.

A tear made it's way down her cheek and dripped onto Neji's hand. Tenten wiped it away. She was a kunoichi, and shinobi couldn't afford to show feelings. She left the room in a muddle of emotions, but with a face as blank as stone.

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**I actually did research on the snake thing. Don't laugh at Tenten for being a bit confused, I bet it took you some time to get that paragraph into your head.**

**Anyway, I'll write the next chapter soon IF I get at least 1 review. And I really want to write this story. So review. Or my cute little doggie will eat you.**

**Ja ne!**


	2. Goodbye

**No thanks to all of you guys who didn't review, I managed to get the second chapter up within the week. Enjoy, and once again, I won't write more if I don't get one review.**

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"He'll be in the hospital for at least a month." said Sakura.

"A whole month? Was it that bad?" breathed Tenten.

Sakura nodded, and felt pity for the poor girl. It was a little bit obvious to everybody that she was in love with Neji. Even when she denied it, people could see the slight blush. As a matter of fact, Sakura had felt that way about Sasuke, even after he left to go to Orochimaru. Up until recently, Sakura had pined over Sasuke, and her life had fallen into disarray. She began to fall behind on her research, get at most 3 hours of sleep a night, and even get stone drunk every once in a while.

Gaara had found her passed out in a bar, her hair unbrushed and with bags under her eyes. He slowly helped her get better, and one night, Gaara took her out to the top of the faces of the Great Hokages. There, he told her he loved her, kissed her, and proposed.(**See my other story being written, 'Cross My Heart'**) That night, Sakura was no longer plagued with horrid nightmares of Sasuke or worries about the village.

Coming back to the present, Sakura realized she had been fiddling with the ring. She placed a hand on her stomach, just barely starting to show. Gaara wasn't going to be able to come and see her until she was at 7 months. The kazekage was always busy, but a replacement was going to come into the village for the time period of the birth, so that Gaara would be able to see his wife and child. _'Only four months until I see him.'_ Sakura reminded herself.

Tenten thought about why somebody would try to hurt Neji. There were way too many reasons to pick just one. Grudges were easy to hold, especially against a prodigy and someone like Neji. Tenten had actually hated him at one point, when they were first assigned to their teams.

**'Memory'**

"**Hey, it looks like we're on a team together, huh?" said a young Tenten**

"**Hn..." grunted Neji.**

**_'What's up with this guy? I just met him and already he's avoiding me.' _thought Tenten. She was confused. Most people warmed up right away to her sunny personality. But apparently this guy was a tough nut to crack.**

"**So, who do you admire most? Like, who's your role model?" asked Tenten.**

"**Hn..." Replied Neji, once again.**

"**Mine is my mother, because she was so great a kunoichi! I'm gonna be just like her!"**

**Getting curious, Neji finally replied.**

"**Why do you say, '_was_ so great'?"**

"**Well, she's gone now. Disappeared on a mission when I was 2."**

"**So she's dead."**

"**NO! She's not dead! She just disappeared, like I told you! She'll come back..."**

"**She's dead."**

"**Shut up! She's not dead! Be quiet! I... I hate you!"**

"**Hn..."**

**'End Memory'**

Tenten had grown up a lot since then. She hadn't even really believed it then. She just didn't like the truth, and thought she could change it by denying it. She was more realistic now, and still mourned but knew she couldn't change anything. Her heart had still gotten a lot of little dents on it from that time. The feeling towards Neji seemed to dissipate as another one grew in it's place. Thus came the time where Tenten developed a small crush on the Hyuuga. Although she didn't notice, Tenten was always a little more flustered, a little more embarrassed, whenever the two came in contact. One time, during a sparring session, Neji grabbed her hand to close up the chakra point, and Tenten's mind went blank. The only thing she could think was that Neji's hand was holding hers. That is, until he actually sealed up the chakra. That brought Tenten back to earth.

**Go to youtube and find Concrete Angel **

**Listen to it while you read the rest of this chapter**

As Tenten changed her clothes to go to bed, she felt a lot lonelier than she had ever been, simply because her mother was gone. Her father was still living in the village, but she could hardly love such a vile man. He drank, took drugs, came home every night with a prostitute, or sometimes didn't even come home at all. If Tenten ever mouthed off to him, he beat her, often using his belt or just kicking and punching her. Downstairs, she heard the door slam shut. Taking a look at the clock, she found out it was well into the night.

Tenten hadn't had anything to eat at home for breakfast or supper for several weeks. Packing the most food she could afford (which wasn't much) into her lunch, she managed to convince her teammates and sensei that everything was normal. She started to wear sweaters and pants to training to hide the bruises, scrapes, and cuts.

Every now and then, her father didn't have enough money to get a prostitute, so when he came in the house, he would go up to Tenten's bedroom, and touch her all over. The first time this happened, Tenten began to cry and tried to push him away. He got very angry, began to beat her savagely. That morning, Tenten could barely get out of her house, and collapsed at the entrance to the training grounds. Neji found her lying with her head against a tree, and carried her to the Konoha hospital. Unconscious for over a day, Tenten began to truly fear her father. When the medics asked her how she got hurt, she wouldn't say anything. When Gai-sensei questioned her injuries, she didn't talk, and the same went for Lee. When Neji had approached her, and in his cold way, wondered the thing everyone had been asking, Tenten burst into tears.

She knew that if she told anybody the truth, her father would most likely beat her to death. Even if he didn't, he would be taken to prison, and Tenten would be stuck tying to survive on her own. But if the abuse continued, she would eventually give up on everything. So she told Neji a half truth.

"When my father came home last night, he was drunk, and hurt my leg. I was going down the stairs to get some bandages, and I fell and hurt myself..."

Neji hadn't been sure whether to believe her or not. But Tenten had never lied before, so he chose to believe her.

Back to the present, Tenten heard her father roar in anger. The stomping footsteps shook the house, and they continued up to her bedroom door. She cowered under her blankets, as a silhouette appeared in the doorway. With his belt, he brutally whipped her stomach and spine until she was lying upon the ground. He then proceeded to heavily hit Tenten's face until a gash opened up in her temple.

With the blood pouring out of her head at an alarming rate, Tenten remembered last year, when she had promised upon her mother's grave to become a great kunoichi. As she faded away slowly, her eyes closed. _'I'm sorry, mom...'_ was the last thought Tenten could muster before her heart stopped.

Tenten was dead.

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**Don't you worry, this story is far from over. And this IS a story about Tenten and Neji. We can't have them dead, now can we? I'll dedicate a chapter to whoever guesses the plot of the next one first! ;)**

**Ja ne!**


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